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A bit of history on Embossing and Engraving

Hot stamping has been around for decades. You have probably heard many terms for what we do: personalization, embossing, debossing, blind stamping, engraving, hot stamping, hot foil stamping etcetera. To avoid confusion, we specialize in the art of engraving your choice of names, words, sentiments and dates onto our exquisite albums, journals, guest books and specialty books. The technical name for what we do is debossing since we are actually pressing the letters into the leather. Blind engraving is just the letters themselves, while colors use foils that are melted permanently into the book.

Our personalization techniques stem from Old World printing presses where each book or page was debossed individually and by hand. This tradition has continued through the ages, but with wide use of automated machinery, it is rare to find hand-engraved leather work. One unique quality of hot-stamping is the capability to apply metallic and matte foil. No other method can duplicate this unique ability of the hot stamping process and it is what allows colors such as gold, silver, copper and ivory to be pressed into an Epica book.

Epica uses a hot stamping press invented over 80 years ago in combination with a foil process developed well over 100 years ago. While hot stamping has been used for hundreds of years (think branding, tattooing, or simple ink printing), it took many years to perfect the uses of heat, time, pressure, and metal type into what is now a fine art. Our master artists invoke this time-tested process to create each piece with incredible attention to detail and appreciation for the art.

If you have ever done work with us before you know our aim is to deliver something to you that looks like a 15th Century relic; or something that has been around for 500 years. The difference though, is that each of our products are made present day with stronger and better materials. So to be able to then personalize one of these books, makes them just about the most unique gifts on the planet.

The services we offer here are not found easily. In fact it is so rare that many of the old cities left in Italy do not offer personalization to the public anymore. Perhaps its due to the lengthy proceedure one most go through to make it perfect. For us at Epica however, it is still worth the time and your appreciation of these fine products is what keeps it fun.